Cops say Mom told daughter to shoplift

GORDON WILCZYNSKI

Published 12:00 am, Sunday, January 29, 2012

Police said a 29-year-old woman admitted she sent her 11-year-old daughter into a Macomb Township grocery store to shoplift while she sat in a car, saying she didn't have enough money to buy food for her family.

Kimberly Ryan Swift of Macomb Township was arrested by Macomb County Sheriff's deputies at 4:43 p.m. Thursday after loss-prevention officers saw a surveillance video that showed Swift's daughter leave the Kroger store with items she put in a shopping cart without paying for them, Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said.

Store detectives became suspicious when Swift entered the store at 21 Mile and Card roads and attempted to return for cash two bottles of liquid soap that she said her daughter mistakenly bought.

Deputies arrested her and found her two other children, ages 5 and 8, in the vehicle waiting for their mother.

Swift pleaded not guilty to charges of retail fraud II and contributing to the delinquency of a minor at her arraignment Friday before 41A District Magistrate Michael Osear. She was released on a $1,000 personal bond.

If convicted, the woman could be sentenced to one year in jail and fined $2,000 or three times the value of the items she had stolen.

Wickersham said Swift sent her daughter into the store with a shopping list of items to steal. Security did not detect the girl when she left the store with the cart filled with items her mother told her to steal.

Swift and her children reside in a mobile home park on Hall Road near Garfield Road.

Wickersham said Swift admitted putting her daughter up to shoplift because she didn't have any money and doesn't have a job. She told deputies she lost state aid and doesn't get child support.